The Message Log

What goes into the message log?

Critical errors of many kinds, including networking and job processing

Errors testing devices such as printers and folders

Record of job processing, including details on programs RPM launches and when the program exits

How do I see what is in the message log?

You can run our log viewer program. In the user interface go to Log / Launch Log Viewer:

This log is recording events at a medium level (more on that below).

How do I use the log?

This is probably the more important question because the support staff are the most familiar with the log.

There is really no need to explain every entity in the message log. Whatever is recorded there is probably because we found a good reason to do so,

Here’s how you get a copy of the log: in the user interface go to Log / Export Log

This will bring up the Windows Explorer window allowing you to save a CSV file. Remember where you saved it and email it to our support staff. Most likely someone will have asked for this, probably by email. If we receive a CSV log file without explanation we’re probably going to have to contact you for more context.

How do I keep the size of the message log in check

In the user interface go to Configure / Log Settings

At the top notice we have the log retention settings. This is how you control how long RPM retains log messages before purging them.

The units field should be clear. Next to that you can select Hours, Days or Months. We have 3 days set by default but you can make it whatever you want.

The log details are Minimal, Low and High, with Low set by default.

For most people, most of the time, the defaults should work well. If our support staff suggests making a change, this is where you do that.

In RPM 6.2 we did some work to reduce the speed penalty for logging at high detail. Still, you should not need to log at high detail unless you have a problem in RPM which we are not able to track in other ways. Please rely on our support staff for advice on the log settings.

We’ve also added the ability to suppress log messages individually. You are welcome to do this if you like. However, we recently worked with a customer who was concerned about RPM slowness (which was due to a network issue, we found) and they turned off all the logging. Unfortunately it made it impossible to review the log for certain records, so they ended up selecting all the log messages anyway.

When do I purge the log?

If everything is working well on your system, you might consider purging the log just ahead of doing database maintenance [/database-maintenance]. Some people do this monthly.

If you have plenty of disk space, you could consider exporting your log before purging so if an issue did come up we would have some kind of records to track history.